In recent years, DSCs (Digital Still Cameras) for capturing subject images have been prevalent, and recording media that are either internal to or removable from the DSCs continue to increase in storage capacity. The increase in the storage capacity has enabled more images to be saved in the recording media which, however, makes it more difficult to find and view (hereinafter, “browse and search”) a desired image from a large number of images.
A typical method in browsing and searching images is to sequentially display thumbnails of the images to enable search of a desired image. Specifically, for example, nine reduced images consisting of three vertical×three horizontal images are collectively displayed on one screen. Then, the reduced images are switched to another set of reduced images to be displayed on the screen with use of an operational button. This enables browsing and searching of a desired image.
Also, there is a display device and a display method with which a desired still image is efficiently searched for with use of operational keys from among images managed in groups (see Patent Literature 1). Since the images are managed in groups, and browsing and searching of a desired image is performed on a group-by-group basis, the number of images for browsing is reduced. This makes it possible to shorten the search time.
Another method is to provide two time lines each having different granularity (e.g., “month” and “day” dimensions) on one screen. First, a desired month is selected from the time line of “month”. Then, only pictures in the selected month are displayed as thumbnails, nine at a time, on the time line of “day”. In this way, still images that are stored in a memory and are captured each month are browsed at high speed with use of operational keys (see Patent Literature 2).